As corporate farms multiply, we should revise subsidy programs

Posted: Thursday, August 23, 2001

Farming is far from an easy lifestyle. In a good year, a family farm may barely squeak by earning enough to cover costs and living expenses. In a best-case scenario, a farming family may be able to put a little in savings.

When a year isn't good -- usually the result of weather problems, insects or crop diseases -- a family farm can easily find itself in the red. If it weren't for federal or state assistance in these times of need, many farmers would be forced out of business.

Even people who have never set foot on a farm can sympathize with a family who struggles to make ends meet while trying to grow crops to feed a hungry nation. This is why government assistance for farms -- whether it's citrus farmers in Florida, Wisconsin dairy farms or Georgia peach growers -- can often move easily through Congress. No one wants to deny farmers aid when they've suffered the ravages of droughts and floods or been faced with drastically lower crop prices. Helping farmers is as all-American as apple pie and mom.

What happens when the farms receiving assistance aren't family-run, but rather giant conglomerates or state-run operations? Suddenly the sympathy factor begins to dwindle, and the assistance looks less like benevolence and more like corporate welfare.

President Bush recently approved a $5.5 billion farm bailout package that he said was to compensate ''farm families'' for low crop prices. In reality, the largest chunks of money went to recipients like the Montana state government, the University of Illinois and Tyler Farms, an Arkansas-based partnership that controls 40,000 acres.

According to a government watchdog group, Tyler Farms is getting about $1.7 million, more than any other single recipient. In the past five years, Tyler Farms has received nearly $24 million in farm subsidies.

Montana's Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, which receives federal subsidies on state-owned cropland, will get the third largest amount, $906,965.

The University of Illinois should collect about $126,000 for its farm interests. Between 1996 and 2000, the university got nearly $1.8 million in federal farm subsidies.

One percent of the 1.4 million recipients will get 15 percent of the payments, or about $52,000 each. The top 20 percent will get 79 percent of the money. While the supplemental payments are capped at $34,000 for individual recipients, there is no ceiling on the amount of government assistance institutional landowners and certain partnerships can receive.

With the face of farming changing in America, it's time to start reviewing the standards by which the federal government doles out agricultural assistance. We need to make sure that the aid is going to those people who need it most and not just fattening the bottom line of some corporate partnership or acting as another revenue source for a state government.

Federal agriculture assistance should act as a type of insurance that allows small farms to stay afloat in the wake of plunging crop prices or disaster. Unlike corporations and state governments, small independent farmers are less equipped to absorb these kinds of unforeseen problems. They're the ones who truly need our support.

This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Thursday, August 23, 2001.